Significant implications for political discourse on the web and beyond.
Reddit has announced a change to its algorithm on /r/all, the page that is meant to rank the most popular posts trending across the site’s user-run communities. According to Reddit, the algorithm will be changed to promote more “diversity” on the subreddit.
The change is an explicit response to the Islamic terrorist attacks in Orlando, Florida. In their aftermath, /r/all was dominated by posts from /r/The_Donald, the primary community for Trump supporters on the site.
/r/all collects and ranks posts on Reddit according to how many “upvotes” they receive from users. A post typically requires several thousand upvotes to reach the front page of the site.
In the aftermath of the Orlando shootings, mass censorship on /r/News, Reddit’s main forum for discussing breaking news, led to a massive user exodus to /r/The_Donald, a community known for its commitment to free speech. According to The Daily Beast, more than 11,712 subscribed to the Trump-supporting subreddit on Sunday alone, making it the most successful day in the community’s relatively short history.
